Makerday pic 8Greene County Intermediate students recently got the opportunity to experience real world learning with a two-day Makerday event.

Fourth and fifth graders did a variety of activities including experiencing virtual reality, 3-D printers, making movies with green screens, building castles out of unconventional materials, creating a vehicle that moves when you blow on it and several others. Principal Maranda VanCleave says there’s a shift in the overall delivery of education incorporating 21st Century skills.Makerday pic 1

“We’ve been working on that for the last couple of years to really shift towards more hands-on, less teacher-talk, more action and students really showing us what they know with some of these hands-on learning. Instead of focusing more on the teacher (on that side of it) but we’re really focusing on what’s happening with the learning and how students can demonstrate and show us their knowledge.”

The Makerday was brought to light when the Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency did some student interviews earlier in the year about what they wanted to learn. Pictures from Makerday can be found below.

Students making billfolds in "Project Runway"
Students making billfolds in “Project Runway”
Another student making a purse in "Project Runway"
Another student making a purse in “Project Runway”
A student made a castle using unconventional materials
A student made a castle using unconventional materials
Students made "Puff Mobiles"
Students made “Puff Mobiles”
Students watching a 3-D printer making the clock tower at the ISU campus
Students watching a 3-D printer making the clock tower at the ISU campus
Students experiencing virtual reality
Students experiencing virtual reality